What did you do on your layout today?

Noodled about with one of my "shop queens", an unholy amalgam of a 646 drive and a postwar Japanese diesel boxcab: 

I reached the conclusion that the E-unit is in need of a new drum and contacts, as the motor is, to be charitable, intermittent and the brushes aren't getting power.  Might just find a working used unit and drop that in.  Anybody got a spare? 

In any event, this will be a nifty unit when it's done...

Mitch

Its good you updated to 1.52 but you are not up to date.......recent revision is now 1.54.

-Pete

Spent a nice part of the day on the outdoor G line. Also mated an LGB motor/drivers unit to a Lionel #38 engine shell. Runs pretty good but need more ballast so I have to flatten more 80 cal. musket balls and glue them in. Had to jury rig a coupler to hook up to the cars with a knuckle coupler. Still have few issues with the track because of the wet weather. Will run the O scale this evening.

Thanks guys. As always it is my pleasure to share my adventure in model railroading with all of you.

Randy - It has been something like a virtual tour over the last two and a half years. Anyone who is planning to come to the Twin Cities is more than welcome to visit, just drop me an email.

As for Gargraves track, I made that commitment more than 20 years ago at the Mall of America. It is economical and easy to work with, and it is among the very few hobby products still made in the USA.

Bruce - Looking back, it was the forum that made all this possible. After my run in with cancer almost 9 years ago, I all but gave up on the layout. For nearly 6 years I completely ignored it. When the oncologist said I didn't need to see him anymore, my outlook improved and I started working on it again.

That's when I realized that I needed help. First came Patrick, then Matt and finally Jon, all found right here on the forum. Without them, there would be no second helix, no second level, no working switches, no small hidden yard, no drop ceiling, no lighting, and a whole host of other projects completed in the last 2 and a half years.

This is what happens when a grand vision meets dedication and insanity.

Well lets see, I'm waiting for a Lionel 6-16881 Barrel shed to get here that I won on Dash. I also ran my Lionel 2018 2-6-4 Prairie Steam Engine that my dad bought me in 1960. Plus I worked on the layout details.

   This afternoon, I repainted an old Lionel bobber caboose in Pennsy Tuscan Red.  After the paint had dried, (about 6 hours), I decal lettered the car for the Western Maryland and gave it #1268.  The job came out pretty good.  I did this car up to go with a Williams Western Maryland 44 tonner I bought years ago.

Started a build on a switching layout. Cut the first sections of track support (the green polygons on the module sections. Overall dimensions are 12'x13' with a 44-inch minimum radius.

Kinda stuck in the building process, have had thoughts of going back to tubular since i find myself running more postwar stuff lately. 

When my patient wife said I could build a layout in the garage the only stipulation was both hers and our daughters cars need to be parked inside still.

Here's my little but enjoyable 10x3.5 garage special. Mission accomplished!

Lots of good results yesterday. Lighted the Plum Point Lighthouse (Captain John & Wood would know this one), corrected an issue electrical issue with siding number 7, and placed new metal figures in the refinery area and the CAT dealership.

Hope everyone had a nice 4th of July holiday...  Elliot, you are amazing in what you are building.  I'll have to write you a PM about trains vs. sickness..

Last night and this morning, I am putting six casters on a rolling stock "tray" that will wheel in and out from under the layout.  Will contain approximately 480-inches of storage tracks for misc rolling stock, predominately freight cars.  More later!

Cheers.

KRK

Added the last house for the town of Lemasters on my layout......

added some more ground cover. lover right corner first pic painted over the dark gray with white on the lionel bridge. lighting is daylight led bulbs expensive but worth it

MWB

Lamenters must be a classy town.  Nice job

Al

I have the mainline on the first level redesigned and running again....now a double figure eight which utilizes the run of the U shape pretty well. I've assembled the materials for the upper deck. That will be the real challenge since it's going to include the infamous swing bridge.

I didn't much down on the home layout this past weekend since I worked the store all weekend. However, it did give me a chance to get some work done on our store layout (picture below), including putting up the background buildings. (Sorry about the lighting, the layout is by the front window so it's difficult to take pictures because of the lighting.)

Well today I got the colors and black wash on. But I learned an important lesson today. I went to Hobby Lobby by me because they carried woodland scenic products. Unfortunately they didn't carry the color pigments. So rather then trying to find another place I opted to buy yellow ochre that could be thinned with water like Woodland Scenics. Found out the hard way they are not the same. It ended up too harsh and the best I did so far was to apply three coats of black wash. I cannot do a fourth so this is the way it will stay. Here are pics. I did work a bit on the industrial area but laying out what I want to do may not work. So it looks like it will be trial and error for a while............Paul 

Took a break from insulation installation and constructed this knee wall to serve as stairwell protection, a location for the main bank of light switches and some much needed shelving. 

The Erector bridge illustrates where the future layout will cross over the stairwell. 

Pan to the left and here is the lower section of the "T" shaped room.  I decided on a sub panel up here in the attic so I can kill power without running downstairs.  The trouble lite below acts as a temporary connecter to the LED ceiling lighting until power is properly piped upstairs.  Again, this shot shows the use of 4 X 8 sheets of melamine covered hardboard to round out the contour of the peaked ceiling.  To the left a temporary hardboard section in place to show how the hip wall to rafter transition will look. 

 Orange and Blue begins to appear here and there.  This is serious!

Bruce

today - thinking - planning - an ebay order

i am working on a permanent Christmas layout - and - including some things on the lay from the childhood train days - "moonman" with a photo suggested a Tinker Toys, "Farris Wheel" -

last thursday sent the photo to Hasbro asking which tinker toy set contained this farris wheel - this morning an email from Hasbro - stating clearly this was not a Hasbro item - posted on the forum asking for help - "joe z" in less than five minutes pointed me to ebay - a buy it now - will be delivered on thursday

Hasbro Classic 107 Tinker Toy Construction / 2000

now to find little folks to sit in the red chairs

A Good Day - - rdeal

Tinkertoy used to be made by Playschool.

And do you mean "Little People"?

I loved the kid with the frying pan hat

There is an engineer too!

Got a little more done on my layout tonight, cut and painted one corner for the shelf track, then braced and screwed down all the legs on lower layout, next up are the remaining four corners for shelf and last 2 benches for lower layout, then the hair pulling begins when start wiring my home runs.

I added more illumination to downtown Patsburg by wiring up a postwar ( late 1940s ? ) metal gooseneck street lamp, and an MTH building tonight.  I also ran trains.  Big fun!!! 

I finally finished the fencing on my upper track (necessitated after a couple of VERY unfortunate derailments when pulling more than ~15 postwar cars). This was the third iteration, and otherwise like any good hobby, it took 10x longer than anticipated. Overall it turned out well though. Doesn't obscure as much as I had feared.

I added more lights too.

Left the glue gun plugged in again two days in a  row

But this time it didn't melt a sink hole in the green foam under the grass mat and track.... 

What I did right though, was....

 A spotlight (top hat) over the culvert loading area.

Flagpole base spotlight, shining up at Old Glory. I turned a laser pointer tip into the sconce.

A house got overhead lighting.

And a bulb got added to the center under a girder bridge.

After I fix a lighted bumper, I think I'm done.. again... for a while

One more spot, in one more spot() is tempting me, but I'm out of top hats

Thanks. All components are custom made for this loop - plywood and 3/32" polycarbonate cut to size by Tap Plastics (awesome place - hope you have a branch in your area but if not they do online orders too).

This gives an idea of the 3 brackets used - the outriggers to support the fence and then the two different supports for the track. I had to negotiate trim for a window, closet door and main door so lots of fine tuning to make everything fit and look good.

Working on a few high rise buildings.  Here is the first put mostly together, painted, and just got done wiring lighting on all floors.  The backside is open to go in front of a window AC unit to hide it.

Next up, curtains, background for the rooms, and a few figures in the windows.  Oh, and I have to occupy the storefronts on the first floor.

Ron S

SAL9000

I like both your overhead layouts.  I hope to get mine finished this winter.  Right now onlÿ part of it is up, and at that some only temporary fitting.  They are serving as high up display shelves right now.

SAL9000,

Your clear barriers look great and don't obscure the view at all.  When watching a train, I think the eye won't even notice them.

Finally had time to set the roundhouse and to make a waterway between the track

Finished the stone wall around the base to support the Harry Heike GCT Base unit. Then it was on to repopulating the passenger trains that I had to remove to get at this area of the layout. No easy task as there were 150 of them.

No progress on the layout, but we did have a big railroading moment last night. It was my daughter's second birthday so we introduced her to railroading with an O scale Thomas remote set. She stood in the middle of the oval controlling the train with the remote and watching it go around yelling "choo-choo, choo choo." My wife reports they had another operating session already this morning.

Got the paper 1:1 representation of a building flat completed. It'll be the pattern for a wood structure I'll build with scale lumber and door/window castings I already have.

Also, I was going to put labels on the following:

• Button on my DCC throttles
• Numbers for turnout pulls
• Car card box slots

However, my computer went belly up (got stuck in a never-ending loop of update/failed update/removing update/repeat). I spent the better part of 6 hours over two days going round and round with Microsoft and HP's people in India (nothing is funnier than a Punjab accented voice saying, "Hello, my name is Bob") to get to the point where I re-set my computer to default mode late last night. Thank goodness we store all our 'cannot lose' files on an external hard drive which was unplugged before the re-set occurred, otherwise I'd have lost thousands of photos and files. So the labels are going to be made this week.

NOTE: get an external hard drive for the stuff you don't wanna lose. The above could easily happen to you and I'm so thankful my wife thought ahead and got that hard drive so we didn't lose anything important.

Thanks Mark, it is going slowly, the supports are 6 inch MDF boards using wood corbels from Home Depot, My loft is 25 x 22 and the shelf runs around it, the entry is 9 feet wide, so I am having 2 metal support brackets made by a local custom shop to mount into ceiling and bridge across it with 2 MTH steel arch bridges spaced apart with 3 girder sections, after that it is track and wiring and getting some passenger consists running as work on lower layout.

Put up a fence up today.

Brian,

Am I reading this correctly that you have 150 passenger trains?  Not just 150 engines or cars, but 150 complete consists!  I knew you have a lot of the finest, but never dreamed so many!  I sure wish we were able to swing a trip to your open house this year.

All I can say is it is a pleasure to see photos of all your great trains!

Seems like a good plan for 'bridging the gap'!  I am working in a space about 12x12, so I can appreciate the amount of work with your head up by the ceiling.

Hello everyone well today I did some painting and washed a bunch of windows. I wished I didn't pull my back out the other day. It put me 3-4 days behind wear I wanted to be.  I will have this somewhat up and running this year. 

Scot,

Sorry you pulled your back.  You are certainly making the house look spiffy!  Soon you can get back to the layout!!

I spent a couple days in Pittsburgh last week.  My girlfriends daughter and husband had their first child on the 2nd.  I found four of the many train stores spread out around the area.  Friday I drove over to Patrick's and picked up a MTH House Trailer for the layout.  Driving back home on the forth I scoped out five more shops, unfortunately all were closed for the holiday.  I plan to check them out on my next visit.  Maybe as soon as this weekend if their Mom is ready to come home by then.